hoche

Forms

hoche f, with aspirated h, pronounced [ɔʃ]^[1] Old French osche, oche and hoesge.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old French osche, of disputed origin.^[2][4][1] The word is found across the Gallo-Romance area, with Old Occitan osca (“notch”) (about 1228) and in Old Gascon the same word meant “breach in the ground” (1384), and also in northern Spain, with Medieval Latin osca in Aragon in 858, and in Piedmont and Liguria;^[2][4] the Basque type is ozka (“notch”).^[2][4]

From this spread Wartburg, in the FEW, derives it from Gaulish *osca (“notch”), a form he infers from Welsh osg (“notch”) and Breton ask (“notch”), and takes the Basque word as a borrowing from Romance;^[2][5][4] Bloch and Wartburg call the Gaulish origin likely.^[6] Hubschmid instead traces the whole family to a pre-Roman root akin to Basque, from a pre-Indo-European substrate.^[2][4] P. Guiraud doubts both and takes the noun as a back-formation from the old verb hocher “to notch”, which he derives from Vulgar Latin *oscicō, a doublet of Latin ōscitō (“to gape”);^[4] the Grand Robert gives both a pre-Roman etymon and a back-formation from the verb.^[1]

The initial ⟨h⟩, which appears late (Palsgrave, 1530), is probably due to the influence of hocher “to shake”.^[2][4][6] Littré thought the origin very uncertain and reported older guesses: Diez's dialectal German Höck and Scheler's suggestions of a Walloon form of coche or of Latin occō (“to harrow”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Béroul's Tristan (about 1170) has osche for a notch or nick in an object, here the blade of a sword.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Common in Old and Middle French, the word specialized about 1260, as oche in Étienne Boileau's Livre des métiers, in the notch cut on a tally stick to keep count of goods sold on credit;^[2][4] a 13th-century French text of Marco Polo describes such tallies, split sticks on which each party cut two or three oches.^[7] In the 14th century it was a notch in clockmaking.^[2]

The ⟨h⟩ spelling spread in the 16th century (Palsgrave 1530, Paré about 1560).^[2][3] Later dictionaries record technical senses: a wooden upright sealed in a wall to hold the lines that check its thickness (1755, Aviler) and the notch that takes the tenon of a folding knife's spring (1873, Larousse).^[3] The sense “nick in a blade”, still in Littré, has since gone, and the word as a whole is now dated, surviving regionally for a natural notch.^[4][2] The verb hocher “to mark with a notch” (about 1160, past participle oschié) has fallen out of use.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1170 – Osche appears in Béroul's Tristan.^[2]
• c. 1260 – Oche is used for a tally notch in the Livre des métiers.^[2][4]
• 14th century – Used in clockmaking for a notch.^[2]
• 1530 – Palsgrave writes it with ⟨h⟩.^[2][3]
• 1755 – Aviler records the building sense.^[3]
• 1814 – Bernardin de Saint-Pierre describes the notches left by fallen palm fronds.^[2]
• 1873 – Larousse records the folding-knife sense.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated) A small notch, a coche.^[2][3]
2. (dated) A notch cut on a tally to keep count of bread, wine or meat taken on credit.^[2][7][3]
3. A nick in a knife blade.^[2][7][3]
4. A small notch that receives the tenon of the spring of a folding knife.^[3]
5. (building, in the plural) Wooden uprights sealed in a wall to hold the lines that check its thickness.^[7][3][8]

Related words

• coche
• hocher

Usage notes

The h is aspirated.^[1] The Wiktionnaire gives the building sense a separate origin, perhaps English hook.^[8]

References

1. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
5. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 7, 432b
6. ^ a b Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
7. ^ a b c d e Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ a b Wiktionnaire (French Wiktionary), fr.wiktionary.org